Oct
23
Friday news roundup
October 23, 2009 | 5 Comments
Lots of interesting stuff to blog enough, but not nearly enough time to talk about them. Here’s my quick take on a bunch of items.
- Sarah Palin rocks. It’s nice to see a Republican who is actually willing to fight for core principles. Palin has endorsed NY-23 Congressional candidate Doug Hoffman. Perhaps Palin can help assuage the 73% of Republicans that feel their party leadership has lost touch with its base.
- The Chicago Thugocracy continues apace. Kudos to those in the media who stood up to the White House and insisted that the Fox News be included in the interview of a White House official. Clearly the administration’s absurd campaign against Fox News is meant to intimidate the entire press corps. So far industry solidarity has trumped partisanship. Hopefully that trend continues.
- Chris Matthews is an idiot. Okay, that’s not exactly news, but his latest whopper is his declaration that the religious right is most like the Taliban. Yeah. I wonder if the White House’s newly discovered rules about what constitutes a “real” news organization disqualifies MSNBC. Somehow I doubt it.
- Patrick Kennedy is also an idiot. Again, not exactly news.
Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I) told CNSNews.com that the Catholic Church is doing nothing but fanning “the flames of dissent and discord” by taking the position that it will oppose the health-care reform bill under consideration in Congress unless it is amended to explicitly prohibit funding of abortion.
As Thomas Peters says, this idiot isn’t even worth the time to rebut. Kennedy is merely the latest demonstration of the complete failure of the American Bishops to properly catechize and discipline the faithful. By allowing the Kennedy clan and their ilk to continue to defy Church teachings on all sorts of issues without any sort of discipline and threat of excommunication, American Catholic leadership has enabled these dissenting liberals to “fan the flames of dissent and discord.”
- I am actually starting to fell bad for Jim Zorn. The guy is clearly in over his head and should never be allowed to coach in this League again – and almost certainly he never will again. Yet I can’t help but see certain similarities between this situation and the Willie Randolph firing. Randolph was allowed to twist in the wind until the Mets callously and classlessly fired him. In the end, despite the fact that most fans wanted Willie to go, the way that the organization fired him causes most Mets fans to feel sympathetic towards Willie. The same dynamic is at work here. I don’t think there is a single Skins fan who thinks Zorn should be coach beyond this year (and probably beyond this week), but the inept management has basically just publicly castrated the guy and is now engaged in a game of chicken, hoping he quits before they fire him. And while he’s trying to protect a friend, Steve Largent’s assessment of Danny boy and his minion Vinny is dead on.
- Jerry Manuel might not be the worst manager in New York. Mike Scioscia’s decision to walk Alex Rodriguez – who represented the tying run – with the bases empty was a fairly stupid decision. That said, Joe Girardi has shown time and again during the playoffs that he is just not a good manager. Luckily for him his bosses have fat pocketbooks, but the Marlins’ management is starting to look less bad for firing Girardi after one year.
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5 Comments so far
RE: the Fox news story –
I hadn’t heard about that, but that is seriously some VERY scary shit right there, in terms of the basic mentality they’re expressing.
One note related to the Girardi link. I love NL ball. I have come to hate the DH. I prefer the strategy added to the game by the pitcher’s batting. It affects so much and really makes a manager work during the later part of the game.
That said, I have come to detest equally when AL managers feel less important and try to manage like NL managers. Sorry but there’s never a need to double switch in the AL. Pinch running and pinch hitting are also both highly overrated in the AL. The goal is to use your best lineup, period. And when you have the Yankees lineup, your work as a manager concerning the lineup should end when you submit the card to the umpire before the game.
And I hate when these mangers act like extra innings are an impossibility. Let’s pinch run for A-Rod or Damon in the 9th to get an extra run. This way when it doesn’t work and the Angels scratch across a cheap run in the 9th, everyone gets to see Gardner or Guzman for the next 3 or 4 innings instead of our $30 million superstars!
I don’t read the Deeds for Governor Newsletter, so I hadn’t seen the Largent interview. Zorn isn’t much of a coach, but I do feel sorry for him.
In other sports news, I actually noticed a baseball score recently (and I can’t stand the game). I’ve been spending too much time on this blog!
I have to preface this post by saying I love your blog and I find myself agreeing with you most of the time.
BUT, I don’t understand how someone “isn’t worth the time to rebut.” He certainly is worth that time, because people take him seriously whether Thomas Peters likes it or not.
I am not saying this as a liberal who agrees with Kennedy. I am clearly on your side on the abortion issue, but I do think Catholics could do a much better job of approaching the issue than to simply laugh off the criticisms of Patrick Kennedy. The pro-life crowd must start finding responses that would make Kennedy look ridiculous, not merely saying that he is an idiot.
Fair enough Adam, although in my defense this was meant to be a quicky post, and Kennedy’s comment was particularly lame even for a pro-choicer. Anyway, here is Jay Anderson’s post on the topic, which also contains links to other substantive take downs.